


Fly Me To the Moon

by kebabeater1



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BUT ALSO HAPPY, F/M, I've watched too many depressing space movies recently, kind of sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24905464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kebabeater1/pseuds/kebabeater1
Summary: Sokka's daughter learns about her astronaut father's trip to the moon, and the real reason he came back down from the stars. Sukka/Yukka oneshot. AU.
Relationships: Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Yue (Avatar)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	Fly Me To the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> This is my oneshot from FFN, reposted with some slight grammatical editing and a few extra lines, but otherwise unchanged.

**_Fly Me to the Moon_ **   
  
**A/N: I have no idea what possessed me to write this little AU one shot about Spaceman Sokka and his lost love. Yukka, Sukka.**

* * *

_"Houston, this is Guidance. We're ready."_

_"We hear 'ya, Kuzon. How's the weather there in Canaveral? We are go for launch. T-minus."_

_"15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6… ignition sequence starts. 3…2…1… Ignition."_

_"Clock's running, boys."_

_"We have lift-off!"_

_"Houston, Mission Control, this is Wolf Commander. We have cleared the tower at 12:00."_

_"Hey there, Wolf Commander, we got initial guidance over here in Canaveral. Houston, everything looks absolutely frickin' wonderful here in sunny ol' Florida."_

_Hahn grunted. "Come on, baby."_

_Sokka could hear Director Zuko's voice straining from a thousand miles away. "Altitude is on the line… Wolf-11, velocity right on the line. How we looking, Guidance? Don't start dreaming about those sunny Miami beaches yet."_

_A chuckle crackled through the speakers. "You're just jealous because Galveston is a rancid oil spill, Houston. Alignment is good, telemetry is all go. Don't worry, Houston, we're on top of it."_

_Sokka let himself relax._

* * *

Sura scrunched her nose at her dad. "Hey. Pops. Earth to pops." She waved her hand in front of his face.

"Huh?" The old man sounded confused.

"Earth to Pops, this is mission control!"

Sokka grumbled. "I'm here, Sura, you don't have to treat me like I'm miles away in space." His daughter laughed.

"Pretty sure I do, Dad. I swear, half the time, it's like your soul stayed up on the moon and only your body made it back down."

Sokka gazed wistfully up at the full moon that night.

"I think you love the moon more than you love Mom, for spirits' sake." Sura could vaguely hear her father mumble some words, though she only made out two. "Preposterous… jealous…"

"Well, I don't blame her. Every full moon it's like she's sharing her husband with another woman, only this woman is about two hundred forty thousand miles away and nearly seven thousand miles in circumference. Say what you want, Dad, but Mom's got a much slimmer figure than that."

Her father guffawed. "Your mom is still one of the most beautiful women in the world."

"So why do you look at the moon like a lovestruck idiot?" she retorted.

But it was no use; Dad was staring at the moon again.

* * *

_"Wolf Commander, we're picking up some strange-"_

_"Yeah, Houston, this is Commander. Uh… that was probably Hahn's dumb ass with the repress. He'll give us all a heart attack up here. We're all go."_

_"Good to hear, Wolf Commander. Everything is green on our end. Continue your approach."_

_"Roger. We'll try not to make your lives harder, Houston. Next broadcast will be from Sabine D in Mare Tranquilitatis," Sokka grunted._

_"Next broadcast will be history, Wolf Commander."_

_"Don't jinx it, Houston."_

_A nervous laugh came from the speaker. "Yeah, well… this many people counting on you, Wolf-11, I don't think there's a chance for that. How's the landing gear, Commander?"_

_Sokka peered at the controls. "Wolf paws are out, Houston."_

_"Uh… we see your 1201 and 1202 alarms going off, Wolf Commander, what's the status?"_

_Sokka cursed under his breath. "Hahn, take a look at guidance."_

_"Uh… shit, Commander. Computer's postponing calcs. Too much interference being picked up by the sensors."_

_"Alright, Hahn. Houston, I'm going to be taking over manual control, the computer's on the fritz. Looks like it's taking us into a boulder field. I'm going to adjust a little."_

_"Copy, Commander. Good luck." Sokka struggled with the controls, trying to find a clear patch of ground to land._

_"Uh… Commander, this is Houston." The speaker crackled back to life. "Readings show you only have 90 seconds of propellant left. We recommend getting as close as possible, over."_

_"Copy that, Houston. Lowering to 30 meters from the surface."_

_Hahn tapped Sokka's shoulder. "Commander, light's going off. One of the probes is touching surface."_

_"All clear?"_

_"Uh… negative, commander. Contact light."_

_"It'll have to do, we're on a clock. Houston, this is Wolf Commander. Hahn says contact light. We'll be touching down here, I don't think we have enough time to look for better."_

_"Copy that, Wolf Commander. Good luck."_

_There was a groan louder than anything Sokka could have anticipated. He flipped switches, killing the engine._

_"Okay, Houston, this is Hahn. Engine stop, ACA out of detent. Mode control is auto, engine arm off."_

_"Copy that, Hahn."_

_"Houston, this is Wolf Commander, do you read?"_

_"Loud and clear, Commander, go."_

_"Director Zuko... the Wolf has landed."_

_Loud cheers and yelling crackled through the speaker. Sokka grinned._

_"Spirits, Wolf Base, we copy… mother of Agni. We copy here on the ground. I think half the room passed out in the last minute, Sokka. We're uh... just now starting to breathing again. Anything you'd like to say to Mission Control?"_

_"...Yeah."_

_"Go, Commander. We're patching you in throughout Mission Control." The relief in Director Zuko's voice was palpable._

_"This is Commander Sokka Hakodasson of Mission Wolf-11. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening to my voice… pause for a moment, and contemplate the events of the past few hours. Give thanks in your own way."_

* * *

"You never talk about her." Pops was staring at the moon again. He didn't look away when he responded.

"Why would I? Is it that interesting to you?"

"Does Mom know?" The old man sighed, but his eyes remained transfixed.

"There are no secrets between Suki and I, my dear. Your mother knows me better than anyone."

Sura just didn't get it. "So how can she accept this… and not be jealous about it at all?"

Finally, her father tore his gaze from the moon and looked at her.

"Because it's hard to be jealous of someone who isn't there, child. And because I love your mother from the bottom of my heart."

"But you loved her, too. Maybe you love her still."

His blue eyes twinkled.

* * *

_"You have any famous first words for us down here on the big blue marble, Commander?"_

_Sokka sighed. "I suppose… one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."_

_Silence filled the radio waves for a moment. Then the familiar crackle. "That's good, Sokka." Director Zuko's voice seemed to be choked with a little emotion._

_"You guys okay down there, Director?"_

_"We're fine over here in Houston, Wolf Commander. You take care out there."_

_"Copy that, Houston-"_

_"One thing, Wolf Commander." The director had switched comms to Sokka's personal headset._

_"Yeah, Director?"_

_"Cut the formality, Sokka. Private channel. Bud…."_

_"I know."_

_"She would have been so proud of you."_

_"I know."_

_"But don't forget... Suki's pretty damn proud of you too."_

_"I know that too. Thanks, pal."_

_"Take care. Houston out."_

* * *

"Mom?"

"Hmm?"

"How do you do it?"

"Do what, darling."

"Share Dad's heart with another woman."

Suki was quiet for a while, as Sura laid her head in her mother's lap. She stroked her daughter's brown hair, looking intently into her piercing green eyes. Sparing a glance to the kitchen, where her wonderful, oblivious husband of 35 years hummed about the counters, preparing dinner, she spoke softly. "It wasn't easy."

"You know he still loves her. I don't understand. I mean, I get grief. But most people move on. It's unfair to you!"

Suki laughed. "Are you being territorial for your mother? You know, the fact that you exist is probably a sign that maybe it shouldn't matter so much to you."

"Moooom. It's just... I don't like it. It's like every full moon he becomes another person."

"Not so much, kiddo. Long ago I realized there was enough room in that big heart of his for both of us."

"But… don't you feel like it should be exclusive?" Suki gazed down at her daughter, who was carefully studying her face.

"You know, dear… It's not always so cut and dry in real life. There was a point in my relationship with Sokka where all I wanted to do was to take up every inch of his heart. I fought for every inch of space, and it... well, it wasn't all my fault, but it nearly broke us. Then, one day, I realized that all of him, even the part that loves her, loves me."

Sura bit her lip. "Still, somehow it doesn't make sense to me."

"The moment it really clicked for me was…" Suki trailed off, lost in her own reminiscence.

* * *

_Sokka strapped on his helmet and suit, fitting himself into the tight outfit that would protect him from the lonely void outside the airlock. He helped Hahn with his stuff – man was absolutely useless with the helmet straps._

_"Thanks, Commander."_

_"Don't mention it."_

_"Hey… I know we talked about it, but now that we're actually here… it should be you first."_

_Sokka glanced up at his teammate. They didn't have the best of relationships, but the glint in his eye conveyed to Hahn that the gesture was well received. The other man seemed to understand._

_"We ready?"_

_"Yeah." Sokka grabbed the container, and the two astronauts stepped up to the airlock. Sokka released the hatch behind them, trapping them in the in-between pod, and then when it was safe to do so, he disengaged the airlock._

_His first step was airy, light, ethereal._

_Just like she had been._

_He peered out at the grey-white landscape, like a rocky pearl in the void._

_All of it felt both equally real and unreal._

_Just like she had._

_Hahn was busy gathering samples immediately, but Sokka allowed himself to bounce a little bit further from the lander. He uncorked the space lid from the space jar, making a mental note to thank Zuko for pouring a little extra into the mission budget to develop proper space storage tech. He was sure Zuko was thinking pragmatically, and that space containers would come in handy for future missions… but he also knew his friend had done it for him, too._

_Kneeling as much as he possibly could in the extreme low gravity environment, he spread her ashes into the dust of the moon. They fell slowly, drawn by the weak gravity, but as they did they seemed suspended, grey specks against the blackness of the infinite void. If Sokka squinted, it was like looking up at the starry sky, the way they had back in the north, on that bridge over the canal, underneath the light of a full moon._

_A solitary tear rolled out of his eye, but it failed to travel down his cheek quickly. It floated, suspended with little gravity to pull it anywhere. He looked at it inside his helmet, dropping in controlled descent like a hot air balloon, and for a moment he swore he saw white hair and a beautiful smile inside the droplet._

_"Goodbye, Yue." He began to sing one of his favorite songs softly. "Fly me to the moon… let me play among the stars."_

* * *

Sura gazed intently at the board.

Her mother whispered something in her ear.

She thought she saw an opening, and she took it. As usual, it was another trap. This one was a little ingenious. Her father hadn't laid one like it for her in a whle.

"Ugh, Dad. I don't know why we play Pai Sho, I swear I lose 10 times before beating you even once."

Her father chortled. "I think it's your mother dragging you down, dear."

Suki shot her husband a glare of death, but the man's good humor was too much to hate for long. Soon, she too was giggling along with him.

Sokka's eyes seemed especially bright now. He leaned over the board and kissed Suki. Sura made a fake gagging noise.

"Spirits, Mom and Dad, I'm 25 and you guys still disgust me."

"Don't worry, sweetie. Your auntie Katara and uncle Aang used to give me the oogies when they were getting together, too. But it was nice to have something so sickeningly sweet going on during the war."

His eyes seemed to glaze over a bit at the thought of the terrible war he and Suki and so many others had fought in years ago, and he looked out the window at the midnight sky, where a full moon graced the earth with its ethereal light.

Watching her dad take another glimpse at the moon soured Sura's mood. Why did his attention always drift away?

"Dad..." Sura wanted to mentally berate herself for bringing up the topic incessantly. First it had bothered her vicariously for Mom, but Mom seemed to have no problem with it. And the last thing she wanted to do was pester Dad, but she really needed to know.

"I know what you're going to say, dear." Her mother interrupted her train of thought.

"You do?" she glanced at the older woman. Sometimes, looking into her green eyes, she felt like she saw herself reflected in a mirror… only her hair was like Dad's, and she was a shade between the two of them.

"It clicked for me when your father went to the moon." Sura gasped. She'd always grown up on her father's astronaut tales. He never really spoke of the war, but he'd always regale her with tales of training and piloting and being in space. Those were cherished childhood memories for her, but she always thought of them as storybook adventures. Not a defining point in her parents' marriage.

"You see… your father had always been taken with the Moon. At that point in our relationship, where he was preparing to go up, I felt tense. I was competing with someone who I'd never met, and I wasn't sure I was going to win. My worst fear was that he'd..." she shivered a little. "That he'd stay up there. Or that I'd lose him out in the void forever."

Sura just looked at her mother, whose lovely green eyes now seemed downcast.

"When he finally got his chance to go to the moon, I thought I'd get an answer one way or another. And I did."

"What was the answer?"

"That I came back, of course," Sokka interjected. Her father's eyes tore away from the moon effortlessly, this time. Sura watched him. She didn't think anything would get his attention when he was moonstruck, but the look in his eyes when he spoke to Mom... those blue orbs twinkled yet again, and he kissed Mom, deeply.

This time, Sura refrained from getting the oogies.

* * *

_Their mission was nearly over. Hahn had gathered the samples, the plaque had been laid, and they'd erected the flag in the moon dirt. Sokka even found a interesting metal that looked completely different from anything else on the moon. Maybe he could make something interesting out of it, if Zuko let him keep some pieces. Like a weekend project. Maybe he'd make a sword..._

_Sokka smiled when Zuko had told him the solar radiation would blanch the colors of the new flag, so visitors who came later would see only a white flag. Somehow, he thought that was fitting. White like her hair._

_Now, there were other colors on his mind. While he'd been up here, he'd hardly noticed it at first. Now, it was all he could think about._

_The lone man on the moon stood and stared at his home, thousands of miles away. It was blue and green, and so full of life._

_Sokka looked back at his feet. The Moon was everything he'd dreamed it to be. But when he stared at the Earth, a reversal of how so many people before him had looked up in the night sky to the glowing, pale white of Luna, he found what he was looking for._

_He turned back to the lander._

_"Hey, Wolf-11. Ready to come home?"_

_Mission control's voice crackled again through the speakers. Sokka didn't answer for a second. He reached over into the sealed pack by the side of his seat, pulling out his wallet. Suki had given him a quizzical look when he took it with her, though he could tell that she was trying her best to show anything other than the jealousy she felt at seeing Yue's urn. He'd told her he took the wallet so that he could pay the aliens and bring her back a souvenir._

_"I don't need a souvenir," she told him tearfully. "You just come back to me."_

_He found what he was looking for in his wallet. He pulled it carefully, trying not to lose it out of the grip of his fingertips lest it float off somewhere it could get lost. It was faded and worn, but the image always made him happy. And now that he'd come here, to the Moon, to finish the Wolf-11 mission as well as his own, he knew where he belonged._

_He started at the image, the girl's beauty making his heart flutter. Her auburn locks cut to shoulder length. That loving smile, and those green eyes that radiated warmth and care._

_He wanted to go home._

_He cleared his throat. "Yeah, Mission Control. We're ready to come home. Bring us in, Houston."_

_"Good." Zuko switched again to private comms. "Sokka… I'm glad. What was it like?"_

_Sokka laughed. "It was everything, bud. I think I needed to do this."_

_"And what did you learn?"_

_"I could stay here forever."_

_There was a pause on the other end._

_"But… I belong on that blue and green marble. I think I always have. That I know for sure now."_

_Zuko let out a sigh, like the weight of a thousand worlds had lifted from his shoulders. "First round on me when you land, pal."_

_"Cheers, bud."_

_I'm coming home, Suki._


End file.
